Archbishop Georg Gänswein on the centrality of Christ

Gänswein: Endlessness of our everyday life is not a goal worth striving for

According to the Archbishop, Jesus Christ is at the centre of the Christian hope of salvation. Only through Christ's redemptive action does the aspect of eternity take on meaning.

A medically produced immortality could basically only be a nightmare for man and humanity, said Archbishop Gänswein about secular ideas of eternity. The Archbishop spoke in his lecture at this year's summer course of the Gustav-Siewerth-Akademie on the topic "Eschatology and Christo-centrism: theological thinking about the future and eternal life." 

"Motherliness fits every time"

The long-time secretary of Pope Benedict XVI went on to say in his lecture that man is faced with the tension of wanting infinity but having to fear endlessness. On the one hand, man needs the future and on the other hand he cannot bear it. "So he would have to die and live on at the same time - a dilemma," Gänswein said. A first experience of man is first of all that of his mortality, Gänswein said. "He sees that of himself and in himself he has no continuance," the Archbishop noted. In his lecture, Gänswein developed the contrasts of secular and Christian ideas of eternity.

Christ at the centre

"Our faith lives from the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ" said Georg Gänswein, "we live in this hope, which is not just a laborious idea of an uncertain future, but a certainty, 'a reliable hope from which we can manage our present'." With this, the Archbishop quoted Pope Benedict's encyclical Spe salvi. Gänswein continued his thoughts with only one thing in mind: that we recognise in God the goal of our
lives. Again he quoted Spe salvi: "Immersion in the ocean of infinite love, in which there is no more time, no more before and after".

At the end of his talk, Archbishop Gänswein drew a distinction from modern ideas of salvation such as Marxism. Looking at prayer and action as well as suffering as places of hope and judgement as an exercise in hope, the Archbishop led to the conclusion: "Not some God who escapes our gaze is our hope and salvation, but Jesus Christ, in whom God has given us his face and brought salvation."

Opening on the eve of the course

This year's summer course of the Gustav Seiewerth Academy was already opened yesterday with a Holy Mass. The Rector of the Academy then welcomed the participants and led into the first lecture. The motto of this year's summer course is "Utopia - Ideology - Eschatology. Where do we come from and where are we going?" The first lecture of the course was dedicated to utopia. 

Mons. Winfried König spoke about the utopia of Thomas More. Under the title "Utopia - A truly golden booklet, no less wholesome than entertaining. Of the Best Constitution of the State and of the New Island of Utopia", the English politician published his book in 1516. A basic feature of the work, says König, is a certain irony that is typical of Thomas More. However, one could not rule out a protective measure against censorship. 

In the further course, König first took a look at two other utopias. On the one hand, he looked at John Rawls' ideas on justice in a globalised world. Furthermore, he took Francis Bacon's utopia New Atlantis. Morus' utopia was a social critique with a view to England, according to a letter from Erasmus of Rotterdam to Ulrich von Hutten. Erasmus held Morus' utopia in high esteem.

Criticism of England 

"Thomas More criticises English society through the mouth of the protagonist Raphael without naming the country expressis verbis," König emphasised. He said that the English tenancy system in particular was criticised. König explained the tenancy practice at the time of the Crusades and its consequences after the end of the Crusades following the conquest of Constantinople. Crusaders flocked back home and retook their ancestral property. This led not only to the impoverishment of the small peasants in England, the increase in crime and, as a result, draconian punishments. All this is criticised in Utopia.

The theme of worship also plays a role in Utopia. The description of a service in the book shows great simplicity. More speaks of beautifully crafted vestments of the monk and the prostration of all involved. This, he says, describes nothing other than the "Judica me" from the Carthusian liturgy. More had been a postulant with the Carthusians in London. The lecture ended with a short question and answer session. 

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